The Unknown Life of Bellatrix Lestrange
by vcbxnzm21
Summary: Bellatrix wasn't always a monster. This is the story of her unknown life before she changed...before she was forced to change. Round 8 of the Quidditch Comp! Rated T for slight swearing and character death!


**My Round 8 submission for Quidditch Comp. **

**My prompts were **

**-Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina**

**-The clock on the wall seems to be ticking backwards.**

** -Before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place. – Andrea Gibson. **

**I hope you enjoy and please review! Good luck to all other Quidditch players as well! **

Everyone always thought that we were a happy family. The big happy Black family. But it was the opposite. The big unhappy Black family was more like it. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and damn did we have our ways.

It all started when I was young. My sisters and I we were…close. Closer than most sisters at our young age and with the strict upbringing we had. I guess best way to describe us was best friends. We would sit in the dark after bedtime and whisper. That's when we shared our deepest and darkest secrets.

"Before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place," my small voice whispered to open ears.

Everything was at least semi-normal, until I went off to school.

My first year of school was the worst by far. I didn't want to go. I knew that I could learn everything I needed from my parents, but they forced me to go. They told me that if I ever want to grow up and face the real world that I had to go to school. So I went. I was alone though. I had no friends. Everyone in my house though was raised like me. Pure-blood, wealthy, told what to do, what to wear, and how to act all the time.

I wrote nearly every day to my sisters. I told them about the people that I met, how I was sorted into Slytherin and made Mummy and Daddy so proud, the classes that I took, everything that I possibly could about school. I knew that Dromeda would be starting in two years and then Cissy two years after her. I was trying to prepare them.

Going home for the summer was the best part about that first year. Until my parents changed. They become cold and hard. They worked me constantly from then on. Training was what they called it, but training for what I didn't know at the time. They were always drilling me in everything from multiple languages to our pure-blood family history to even dark magic. At the time I was so young and naive that I only obeyed not realizing what I was doing. I saw my sisters only at meals, bedtime, and the few breaks I got during the day.

That second year of school went just as well as the first, but I met someone. His name was Rodolphus. He had some other friends as well that I liked but I could only focus on him. A school girl crush you could call it. I thought only the highest of him.

The summer after was the same as the last. I trained and practiced everything my parents told me. But now if I did something incorrect I was beaten. It started as slaps to the face but punches in the gut then my father whipping me with his belt until they started to use the cruciatus cruse on me. I knew that I should stand up for myself but I was scared shitless of my parents.

That next year at school was the best at that point. Dromeda was finally old to join me. She was put into Slytherin as well and our entire family grinned with pride at us. But she was different that I was. She hung with the 'wrong crowd'. She liked hanging with all the mud-bloods and blood-traitors. I knew what those words were because my parents liked to use them. I tried to convince her to hang out with other people, anyone else, but she wouldn't listen to me.

That summer was one of the worst. Dromeda joined me in training. But my parents had heard of whom she was friends with. They beat her more than they had ever beaten me. I knew that I should stand up for my sister. I was the oldest after all, but how could I protect her when I couldn't even stand up for myself? I beat myself up more for how much of a letdown I was to her.

Going back to school after that was the best thing that could have possibly happened. I had friends to hang out with and Dromeda was safe from our parents. That was until my friends started to pressure me into showing them the magic that I had learned from my parents. It was against the school rules to do the kind of magic that I was doing but I didn't care. I knew that I shouldn't have done it for them but I thought that it would make me cool, showing off to the older kids.

That summer was the same as the last. Dromeda and I trained and rarely saw Cissy. That summer I hit Dromeda at my parents' request. As soon as they left the room I helped patch her up and apologized more times than I could count. But on the inside I felt no regret for what I had done. I was slowly turning into a monster and, although I would never admit, I loved it.

That school year Cissy joined us in Slytherin at school. I was so proud of my little sister and so was the rest of my family. She stuck close to my side after that. My friends accepted her and she even had some of her own. She and Malfoy were especially close. I could see the love sick puppies for what they were, even if they couldn't see it in each other. I knew my parents would be pleased with the fact that she liked a good, respectable, pure-blood. That year Rodolphus asked me out. I knew that my parents already had a marriage arranged for us so I agreed. He was the first man I loved but far from the last.

The summer following was one that I saw coming from a mile away. Cissy joined in on the training. Dromeda was beaten and my parents' invited me to join in. That was the first, but certainly not the last, time I cast the cruciatus curse on her. That's when I realized that I hated my younger sister and I wasn't shy voicing my opinion of her. My parents looked at me with more respect after that. I knew that in their eyes I was an adult now. I protected Cissy from them. I knew that my littlest sister looked up to me and I choose to protect her. I hoped that if I protected her, unlike how I couldn't protect Dromeda, that she would end up more like me.

That school year was by far the best so far. I was one of the coolest kids in my group of friends. I could do all the dark magic that I wanted and not get in trouble. I could practically do anything I wanted without getting into trouble. That year was when I got the letter from my parents. I knew that they were Death Eaters but now they wanted me to join as well. They were giving me two years to think about it. The day I graduated was the day that I had to decide to be part of Lord Voldemort's army or be forever shunned by my family. I knew the right choice.

That summer I was trained on nothing but dark magic. I knew that my parents wanted me to be ready for when I officially became part of the Dark Lord's forces. That summer was also when I learned that Dromeda was seeing someone. A mud-blood. I thought that she couldn't lower herself any more but I was proven wrong. I felt no regret as beat and tortured her. I knew that I was doing it right in front of Cissy's eyes but she deserved to know that being with mud-bloods and blood-traitors was wrong and could get you punished.

My last year of school was by far the best. I practically shunned Dromeda and kept Cissy close to me. Rodolphus and I were better than ever. I was prepared to join the Dark Lord when the time came. I was unstoppable and on top of the world, a deadly combination for the monster within me. By the time I graduated I nearly had the dark mark on my arm and an engagement ring on my finger.

That's when I finally got to meet him. The Dark Lord. He was dark, mysterious, and held more power than I could have ever thought. In my eyes he was everything that I wanted in a man. My fiancée was dirt beneath my Lord's feet.

Joining the ranks of Death Eaters was one of the things that made my parent's the proudest. Marrying a pure-blood man who held much respect was even better. Becoming the Dark Lord's most faithful servant was the best.

But the real reason for trying to climb the ranks was just to be close to him. I was absolutely infatuated with him. I knew that I was in love with him from the moment that I met him.

But then Dromeda ran away with her mud-blood. I hadn't talked to her since I joined the Death Eater's, hell I hardly even laid on her, but she still was my sister. I sent her one last letter telling her how disappointed I was of her, how she could have been so much more if she only was like me. I never heard back from her. I never heard from her again.

Then my Lord fell. But I did one last act of defiance. Torturing that couple was one of the best things that I ever did. Getting caught on the other wasn't as great. I sat in Azkaban and withered away for years.

I thought of all the things that had put me here. My parents forcing me to learn dark magic, my sister and her betrayal to our family, my so called friends pressuring me into showing them dark magic, trying my damned best to protect my youngest sister from all the evil in the world, trying to prove myself worthy enough to be the Dark Lord's lover. But nothing I did ever stopped me from becoming a monster.

So there I sat, until the Dark Lord, my Lord, rose once again. He freed me. After that all I could think about was killing the people who had put me in that damn place. So that's what I did. That's what I did until my dying breath.

I knew that I was losing the duel against that filthy blood-traitor. I glanced upwards for a fleeting moment. The clock on the wall seems to be ticking backwards. I hardly felt the curse hit me.

That's when I heard it. It was the giggles of my sisters as we shared secrets in the dark after bedtime. But there always was one secret that I took to the grave.

"Before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place," my small voice whispered to open ears.


End file.
